Abstract
The goal of the Nigeria Correctional Services (formerly Nigeria Prisons Service) at inception was to mete out punishment to people while they served their jail terms and advance the colonial needs of exploitation. At the turn of the century, however, the emphasis shifted from punishment to reformation and rehabilitation. The new idea was to assist inmates to acquire skills that would help them live more responsibly when they serve out their jail sentences. As laudable as the programs may sound, they have never been effective in reforming and rehabilitating the criminals due to massive corruption in the system, inadequate correctional infrastructure and gross underfunding of the Correctional Services resulting in the release of more hardened ex-convicts and high recidivism rate. This chapter therefore examines the rehabilitation mechanisms in Nigeria’s Criminal Justice System and contends that part of the reasons for the existential crime problem in Nigeria today is that convicted inmates learn more crime tactics and strategies instead of rehabilitative trade. It also suggests that Government should take the issue of rehabilitation of criminal convicts more seriously by providing the needed funding and conducive facilities.
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Onyeozili, E.C., Uzoh, B.C. (2022). An Overview of Rehabilitation Mechanisms in Nigeria’s Criminal Justice System. In: Vanstone, M., Priestley, P. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Rehabilitation in Criminal Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14375-5_26
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